OneMail Service for Staff (email archiving)

What is it?

OneMail works by periodically moving old emails (over 90 days) to a permanent (archive) store on more cost-effective disk storage, whilst they still appear to be wherever they were before.

Most importantly OneMail has removed quota limits on staff mailboxes which means that your mailbox will never fill up while you are away or if you are sent a large file.

What effect does it have on PSTs (personal folder files)?

With the introduction of OneMail there is no longer any need for you to use PSTs to store your email overflow as any mail you want to keep will automatically move into the archive as soon as it becomes 90 days old.

Indeed, to improve the University’s ability to respond completely and accurately to Freedom of Information requests, it is the intention of the University Secretary’s office that email is only stored within the Exchange email system and mail archive. To achieve this, Computing Services have been requested to remove the ability to create PSTs from Outlook on University owned desktops and laptops at a future date (yet to be decided).

To ensure you are prepared for this change, you may move any mails which have been stored in PSTs back into your mailbox so that all your stored mail becomes visible in one place, which will then be accessible both on and off campus.

Instructions about how to do this will shortly be published but in the meantime you may begin to move mail back into your mailbox yourself if you feel confident to do so.

We recommend storing any mail you move in folders which are not sub-folders of your ‘Inbox’, as over time this will slow down performance of your email. Instead, it is better to create folders at the same level within your mailbox as ‘Sent Items’ and ‘Calendar’.

If you currently use ‘Auto Archiving’ from Outlook to move mail into your PSTs, this will need to be switched off before you begin to move mail back into your mailbox.

If you would like advice about how to move mail, or alternatively would like mail to be moved for you, please contact either Staff IT Support or Client Consultancy.

Managing your OneMail

Although the OneMail service means that you no longer have any quota restrictions, it is still important for you to continue to manage your mail effectively.

This is to ensure that you are able to find and work with the emails you need easily, as well as making sure that any unwanted mail is not taking up storage space on the SAN which can be used more productively to provide increased storage space for students.
To do this, we recommend deleting any unwanted emails from your ‘Inbox’ and ‘Sent Items’ folders as soon as you have decided they are not required.

We also recommend storing the mail you want to keep in folders which are not sub-folders of your ‘Inbox’, as over time this will slow down performance of your email.

If you are not sure about the best way to manage and store your OneMail, please contact either Staff IT Support or Client Consultancy who will be pleased to discuss this with you.

Searching your OneMail

To locate email stored in your OneMail mailbox, you should continue to use the normal Outlook search facility which is the best way to find recent mail (newer than 90 days) and allows you to use a variety of specified criteria for searching. For more information about how to do this, please contact Staff IT Support or Client Consultancy who will be pleased to guide you through this.

To find older mail within the archive store, where you are not as certain of specific criteria and need to find mail based on message content, the OneMail search tool (icon with envelope and magnifying glass) is the best way to search. This replaces using the ‘subject field and message body’ within the normal Outlook search which does not find mail stored within the archive.

When you click on the icon, a window will be displayed which looks very similar to the normal Outlook search, but is optimised for finding mail within the archive store rather than within Exchange 2007. Depending on the configuration of your machine and which version of the staff desktop you are using, you may be asked to select a ‘profile’ the first time you use this new search. If so, you should choose the suggestion offered. If more than one option is offered, you should seek advice from either Staff IT Support or Client Consultancy who will be pleased to guide you through this and provide further advice about how to get the most from your OneMail service.

Using Apple Macintosh with OneMail

Although based on the use of Microsoft Outlook, the OneMail Service is still open to staff who use Apple Macintosh machines as well as those who use PCs.

In order to view and work with mail which has been moved to the archive from your MAC you will need to use the Mobile Desktop service which gives you access to a standard staff PC desktop which has the full Outlook client.

For further assistance using OneMail with Apple Macintosh, please contact  IT Support .

Feedback

We hope OneMail will be of significant benefit to University staff and would welcome your feedback to help us develop the service further.

If you have any comments or queries, or would like further information about this service, I would be very happy to hear from you.

Joanna Radley

Operational Services Manager
Computing Services
University of Huddersfield
Tel: 01484 473301
email: j.m.radley@hud.ac.uk